Modern open plan offices are provided with work areas that are partitioned by panels which generally have a height less than the height of the ceiling. The panels and ceiling are sometimes acoustically engineered to absorb vocal and machine noises attendant to common office activity, but not all of these sounds can be eliminated by acoustical engineering and so noise distraction remains a problem.
With respect to speech, it has been found that the greatest distraction is caused not by the loudness of the speech, but by its understandability. Thus, a sound system which can generate a masking sound signal which decreases the understandability of the speech without itself becoming a distraction is desirable.
Effective masking sound systems have in the past generally been designed specifically for the particular office space in which they are located and as such are costly. The majority of these systems are installed in the ceiling and become a permanent fixture of the office. The use of these systems has thus incurred high installation and maintenance costs and reduced the feasability of moving the system to various locations within the office space or upon vacating the premises, in which case, the adaptability of the system would also be in question.
Portable sound masking devices illustrated in the prior art have often produced a continuous sound spectrum which may be ineffective, monotonous, and more annoying than the sounds that are intended to be masked.
A masking sound generator is disclosed in application Ser. No. 614,917, filed Sept. 19,1975, and assigned to the assignee of the present invention which is presently being used satisfactorily to overcome the deficiencies present in the prior art.
It is an object of the present invention, therefore, to provide an improved masking sound aparatus which is also integrated into the general environment by incorportating the apparatus into an indirect lighting structure which is also a desirable part of the modular office.